Profit margins were incredibly thin for Victorian bakers so to stretch flour as far as possible, they would add all sorts of additives to adulterate the end product (e.g. clay, plaster of Paris, sawdust, chalk, and alum, the same chemical used to clean swimming pools during the modern day etc.). Alum had both bulking qualities and acted as a bleach for the flour, so alum despite it being the most dangerous additive, was also the most popular supplement during this period. Victorian grocers would use tactics like watering down milk to stretch it as far as possible, going even further than bakers when it came to food tampering. Grocers would often add red lead to cheeses like Red Gloucester cheese, add iron sulfate to pickles to make them appear more green, spruce up old vinegar by adding sulphuric acid, add poisonous Prussian blue to tea leaves, and mixed mercury with children’s candy to enhance its color